Saturday 26 March 2016

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Saturday 26 March 2016

I seem to be getting behind in keeping this diary, probably because finding the time to record my golfing, ordinary or otherwise, is becoming increasingly difficult to find as the horticultural season hots up (even though the weather doesn’t seem to be in any particular kind of a hurry to follow suit). In the past couple of days I have made it up to the range at the end of the working day and have been practising my short game in particular, but the most interesting flurry of activity took place now almost a week ago over three days on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Sunday was the sixth Dad vs Tristan of 2016 and Tristan was desperate for the win, having only won one of the previous five encounters. And win it he did, on a cool grey day turning to sunshine later, as my usual mastery of the back nine eluded me and I went from all square after 14 to 3 down by the end, helped in no small measure by finding bunkers on both the 17th and 18th. A measure of the discrepancy in length between us came on the 12th when, faced with a 170 yard shot over the trees to the green, Tristan borrowed my FT 9 iron and nailed the centre of the green. I would have needed a 6 iron at the least to do that!

Monday was fun, being the Ambassadors and Ladies Easter event at Chilworth, held on a stunningly lovely spring day of blue skies and but the balmiest of breezes. The format was mixed teams of three, playing a Texas Bramble (select the best tee shot and play individually from there, best two scores to count on each hole). My two ladies and I had our moments, with all of us posting some good scores and hitting some fine shots. Deb took the nearest the pin on the ladies side, I just missed doing the same for the gents, but in the end we had to settle for being just outside the prizes. One lady clearly enjoyed a good day at the office, building up a score of no fewer than 49 points, thereby winning both an individual and a team prize.

The weather wasn’t quite so benevolent the following day for our usual Stableford competition, though it wasn’t bad and I expected scores to be rather higher than they were. I started on the 10th and for much of the back nine could do little wrong, carding several pleasing pars and finding most greens in regulation, before the wheels came off with an ugly nul points on the 18th, courtesy of a poor tee shot and some ineffectual faffing about in one of the fairway bunkers. After that I never quite got it all together again, mixing the sublime with the if not quite ridiculous, then certainly less than totally competent. But I surprised myself by hanging in there just enough to make 36 points, which proved enough for the win both in division two and overall. And I had to be pleased with the way I was hitting my irons and hybrids, particularly the latter.